


My boy

by aceofhearts88



Category: Dalton Academy Series
Genre: Amanda Seigerson, Ernest Seigerson, Family Feels, Lena Seigerson, father-son-bonding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-27
Updated: 2014-12-27
Packaged: 2018-03-03 20:11:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2886041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aceofhearts88/pseuds/aceofhearts88
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the summer before Senior Year, a father sits down to talk with his son.</p>
            </blockquote>





	My boy

My Boy

“No love is greater than that of a father for His son.” 

Dan Brown , Angels & Demons

“I knew my father had done the best he could, and I had no regrets about the way I'd turned out. Regrets about journey, maybe, but not the destination.” 

Nicholas Sparks, The Notebook

“Forget Batman: when I really thought about what I wanted to be when I grew up, I wanted to be my dad.” 

Paul Asay, God on the Streets of Gotham

\--

It had been a day filled with laughter and fun, lounging around the sunshine on the beach, with his sister's radiating happiness never leaving him for more than a second while they built sandcastles and while he threw her around in the ocean.

It had been a good day, and he hadn't slipped back into those dark moments filled with guilt and self blame for more than a split moment in the shower this morning, just for some hours he had been able to put the all consuming worry behind himself and had let himself just live for once. 

But now as the light made way for the darkness of the night, stars twinkling above him as he sat on the edge of the pool in his parents' Hampton house, with his sister long asleep, now he had time to think again and it crashed back over him like a landslide.

And so he had slipped out of the living room, away from his parents, away from the noisy chattering of the TV, once again overwhelmed by his own mind, seeking out the darkness and the silence of the garden to calm down again. And the endless worry came back with doubled force.

How was Logan? When did you last text him? Had his last message seem weird or not? Was he taking his meds? How annoyed had he sounded over the senator the last time they had spoken? Was he able to sleep better now?

And Julian? Better check later again if he was doing okay? Did you need to remind him to call Logan back? Or was it the other way around this time? Remember not to ask too much about his physical therapy, you are curious, but he hates it.

His head was swimming with questions and thoughts and his hands burned with longing for the phone he had stuffed under his mattress this morning after both his friends had yelled at him to take a day off from mother hen duties.

The first time the two of them agreed over something again, Derek thought with a dry laugh and then groaned in the next minute and dropped his face into his hands, banging his feet against the wall of the pool.

He couldn't shut it off, it was like a constant alarm clock in his head nowadays, he woke up with Logan's timezone, but didn't sleep until Julian's timezone called for night time. If someone asked him how he was, he didn't know anymore how to answer because two parts of him were missing.

Balling his hands into fists, he pressed them against his eyes, trying to push the approaching headache away with sheer will. 

In all his inner panic and frenzy though, he hadn't heard the patio door slide open, nor had he heard the silent footsteps coming closer or the soft clink of two bottles in a strong hand. And it really wasn't until the cold bottom of a bottle made contact with the side of his face that Derek wrenched his head up and became aware of the other one's presence.

Hazel eyes meet equal ones. A frowning face met a smiling one.

A slightly trembling hand with marks from fingernails on the inside of its palm reached out hesitantly as the green beer bottle was waved in his face two more times.  
"I think, it's time we had a little talk, my boy.", and under Derek's still confused look, Ernest Seigerson sat down with a low sigh and ducked his feet into the warm water of the pool, just like his son had two hours ago, "Because there is a lot I have to apologize for."

"Apologize?", Derek asked in badly masked shock, "Dad, you don't have anything to apologize for.", but Ernest wisely chose to ignore his son's passionate words, he knew that Derek was blaming himself for a lot of wrong reasons, and that the guilt trip was so deep inside his very being already that even Logan Wright yelling at him over the phone for an hour straight to make him see reason wasn't enough anymore.

It needed something stronger even. It needed a father's influence. And so he started talking.

"I'm sorry, you know. Sorry for a lot of things, but most of all...I'm sorry for making you believe that you were alone in all of this. Because I should have been there for you.", he began and could feel it when Derek's chin dropped, even without looking at him, he knew him well, even if they had been distant in the last years, their formerly perfect relationship becoming strained when expectations and pressure for perfection got mixed up and both of them didn't know anymore what the other one wanted of him.

"Dad...", Derek spoke up again when he had refound his voice, and Ernest felt hazel eyes burning questions into the side of his face, he couldn't stop now though.  
"No, I should have been there. I should have been in your life when all of this started. I should have been right there for you to trust in when this went overboard. I should have been there to gently force you to give this over to the authorities, I should have been there to help you convince Julian that this was too much for you boys to handle. I failed you, and for that I am incredibly sorry."

And when Ernest had finished his apology, the silence that hung between them was very heavy, while Derek tried to process his father's words and Ernest gave him time to swallow and understand them.

"Do you think it would have made a difference?", was the first thing that left Derek's mouth, calm and controlled even though his heart and head were running wild with the realization of what was happening, that his father had truly sought him out to talk. Just them, able to talk.  
"I don't know, Derek, but I do know that whatever it might have changed or not, you wouldn't have been alone.", Derek wanted to point out the obvious that he hadn't been alone in it, that Julian had been there and even if they had kept him out of the loop for most of it, Logan had been there as well, and then Bailey, and then the Windsors had gotten involved and now it was just everyone.

A fact Derek despised most of all, because it had only triggered that Logan and Julian had completely withdrawn to themselves, both of them, and it made it infinitely more difficult to get into their heads and help them.

He knew though that using sarcasm on his father had never helped him achieve anything, so he went for the truth, the simple truth, "I would have liked that. Not being alone, it wasn't easy sometimes.", it was as most as he had come to admitting weakness towards his father in years, but somehow it felt right, somehow it felt as if talking about it could make a change for once.

And then his father offered him the question, Derek had been waiting for since the beginning of sophomore year, "Wanna talk about it?", and he had looked up at his father with hopeful hazel eyes and Ernest had looked back down at him with patience and pride and the words had fallen from Derek's lips before he even knew where to start.

He told his father about the helplessness he had felt when Julian had started to disappear again and again for roles, about the worry eating him up about both of his friends whenever Julian came back completely wrung out and exhausted. He told his father about the panic upon seeing Logan lose control for the very first time, about the frozen state he fell into when the senator took him away for those couple of weeks. Told him about the pressure he put himself under when Logan came back to make sure his friends would be okay.

He told him about the school work, about how difficult it was sometimes to just give everything and not break down under the pressure. His father interrupted him there and raised a hand to softly stroke his fingers through brunet hair as Derek hung his head.  
"Derek, you are making your mother and me very proud. We are so proud of you for what you have already achieved, but I need you to know that you don't have to be perfect in everything. It's okay to not always achieve 100% as long as you are content with what you gave for it. I know that grades are important, and I am proud that you wanna be the best, but just now, I could punch myself for getting this so much into your head that you are scared of not getting 100%.", Derek looked back up at him.

"You are attenting one of the most prestigious schools in the country, my boy, if not the best. Dalton's academic standard is higher than most colleges have in their beginning years. And you can be proud of yourself for being at the top of your classes, I know that I am. But I also know the pressure and the expectations that come with it, I've been there, alright? I was a Dalton boy once as well, and I know how hard it is not to break under it. And with everything that had been going on at the side, and with you keeping Julian and Logan together as well, there isn't enough pride in the world I can express about you."

"Senior Year is coming now.", Ernest continued after a small pause, "And I know that I won't be able to bring you down from this crazy study shedule, but I need to know that you will call for help or support or even a pep talk when it gets too much.", Derek averted his eyes again but nodded feebly, it wasn't enough for Ernest though, who pushed his hand from his son's hair down to his shoulder to squeeze tightly, "Derek, I will make Logan report back to me, and even get Julian into this if you don't call. And yes, this is a threat and we both know they will do it.", they both chuckled though, and Derek even smiled slightly, he knew his friends would do it, because they were little shits like that, but they also only wanted the best for him.

"Logan's been longing to lock me in a broom closet without my books for years now.", he pointed out and Ernest snorted, taking another sip of his beer, Derek followed his move.  
"He has my utmost admiration, respect and permission. You'll need to relax sometimes, son, and I'm not talking sports, you take that more serious than I ever did in my time at that school. Just be a teenager for once, kid, because high school doesn't last forever.", his father explained and Derek nodded, this time more understanding.  
"And what if I fail? A test, an assignment, a grade?", they both knew that failing in Derek's head started at a B, and Ernest pulled his hand over to pull his son's chin up so they would face each other once more.

"Then you don't get a perfect grade for once. We're only human, Derek. And it won't make me any less proud of you, quite on the contrary, it would make me even more proud, because then I can at least pretend that my son isn't already worlds smarter than I could ever be.", Derek rolled his eyes and opened his lips to comment on how his father better take some lessons from Julian until his dramatics looked more convincing, but Ernest continued before he could speak, "I had bad grades as well, Derek, you know that, mostly because your grandfather can't shut up about it every christmas.", Derek laughed, "But what you don't know is that I almost failed American History in my Junior Year.", and his son stared at him while Ernest grinned.

"What?", Derek called out, "How did you get out of that one?", he wanted to know and almost slapped the bottle out of his father's hands when the older man patiently and calmly took another sip before speaking.  
"Colin and John took some...illegal and drastic measures to save my sorry ass. I'm pretty sure we could still lose our diplomas over it. And if I didn't have as much over their heads than they have over mine, I would be much more terrified of us becoming enemies.", Derek didn't know if he was supposed to file it under 'things I didn't need to know about my father' or 'things I always wanted to know about Dad', "Logan and Julian would do the same thing for you, wouldn't they?"

"With glee.", Derek answered truthfully, "Given of course that we do not tell Logan that his father had basically been doing the same, it could put a damper on the fun of it.", there it was Ernest's time for rolling his eyes, "Honestly though, I will call, I promise you. I've learned my lesson, believe me. I won't try to swallow it all down again.", Ernest smiled in gratitude and pushed an arm around his son's shoulder, Derek sighed in relief and leaned against him.  
"I am still giving Logan the permission to knock you out after a third nightly study session without sleep the next time I see him.", his father mumbled and Derek groaned, "Good, now I think there is still a lot to say about Junior Year, isn't there? More than I already know?"

"Oh, you have no idea, Dad.", Derek laughed out once and then let his tongue and lips do the talking again, explaining what had happened from beginning to end, not even leaving out what his father already knew. Ernest listened, asked questions about details and pulled him closer even when Derek started talking about Hell Night.

And it felt good, freeing, Derek could basically feel the rocks and mountains falling off his shoulders, it felt as if he had de-aged years, simply by speaking his thoughts out loud. And when they reached the present time and his worries about his two best friends, he felt so much better, relieved about knowing that somehow he was no longer alone.

"Sometimes I just can't stop thinking about them, what they are doing, what they are thinking or how they are feeling. They are my best friends, Dad.", Derek raised his eyes again and looked at his father, "I worry about them all day and all night long, and it's been like this long before Julian got a stalker and told me about it. Logan has enough issues to last a bunch of people for a lifetime, but he tries so hard to get better, he just needed someone to believe in him.", Ernest smiled faintly upon remembering the happy little blond kid they had left behind when they had left New York all these years ago, he asked himself sometimes just how much he could have protected the boy from the horrors that had fallen over him ever since.

"And Julian just...he lives for what he does, Dad and there was so much to worry about concerning him before this all got even more serious with this stalker business. Julian needs someone to protect him, because his own parents surely show a strange way of making sure he is okay. I want them to be happy, because they deserve it. And I won't be able to be happy and content anymore as long as they aren't. We're thirds of a one, Dad, and even if three quarters of every third are alright, you still don't have a whole."

"You got this from me.", Ernest took over then, looking out over the garden towards the beach, "The incessant need to make sure all your friends are alright and perfect without ever thinking about yourself.", Ernest chuckled and looked down at his hands while his son raised an eyebrow until it dawned on him what his father meant.  
"Where you ever like that with...", and Derek almost had to forcefully choke the word out of his mouth, "John?", the name felt double the amount of weird on his lips, like a forbidden curse, but his father laughed and put the empty bottle down onto the ground with so much force that the bottom cracked a little.

"Oh, you have no idea what we went through when we were your age. How many times that boy nearly cost me my head and my clear record. But there never passed a day where I wouldn't have given all limbs to make sure he was okay, where I wouldn't have driven to the moon and back to make sure my best friend was happy."

It had been the first time in his eighteen years that Derek had heard his father refer to Logan's asshat of a father with the same term he used on his better thirds, it seemed only a little strange to his ears. The memories of Logan and him growing up together on the same street as little kids they were so faded, he couldn't even be sure that the boy he remembered was truly Logan. And in all his time at Dalton, Ernest had never shown the same affection and comfort around the senator that Derek usually vomited on a not so much appreciating Logan and a silently grateful Julian.

It was also strange to think that once his father and John Wright of all people had been in similar situations, where hope had seemed so far away, where the temptation to just give up was so overwhelmingly close. But they had worked it out. They were two very different man, life had marked both of them already, but despite all, they were still friends, still each other's closest confidante.

And wasn't that a sign of hope? A sign that one day he would have his two best friends back, happy and safe.

"Alright, come on, champ.", Derek could only look in confusion how his father got back to his feet and then jogged over to the chest by the living room door, hands rummaging around in it for a while until he pulled out the brown football, and then it dawned on him.  
"You wanna play now? Dad, it's almost midnight, Mandy is asleep.", he tried to argue but his father was grinning almost as thick as his little sister on christmas mornings and Derek strangely felt the older man in the house suddenly.

"You think your old man will best you, don't you?", Derek huffed and pulled his legs out of the water but remained sitting on the edge of the pool, "Come on, Derek, your sister is sleeping like the dead.", Ernest smirked and threw the football up twice and caught it again both times with easy fingers.

"You don't think I am backing down from this challenge, are you?", the hazel eyed teenage boy turned his lips into a grin and casually jumped to his own feet, following his chuckling father over to the grassy part of their Hamptons home's garden. And Ernest didn't even give him any warning before the football was flying towards him and Derek had to jump and lunge to get it, already laughing before he rolled over the grass to get back to his feet.

And it was when Derek threw the football back at him that Ernest got reminded of a time where things had been much much easier.

\--

Flashback

\--

"Daddy, it's really heavy.", smiling down at his four year old son, and hazel eyes looked up at him from a still chubby toddler face as he stroked a gentle hand through wild brown hair.  
"I know, champ, I know it is, but I wanna show you how much fun it can be.", and he moved a few feet away, seeing Lena come to stand upon the patio with the camera in her hand again. 

Derek glanced from him to the football in his tiny hands a couple more times before he straightened up and raised his chin, and Ernest knew he would try again until he got it right, just like with everything else he had ever learned. His son was a fighter, a champion.

"Alright, my boy, you're ready?", Ernest called out then and crouched down a little, Derek nodded and got into position, raising the hand with the football until he felt to have enough of a swing to throw, "Good, now put all your strength into it and throw."

Derek grinned and nodded once more, he struck his arm out and then threw the ball and even though Ernest lunged with longs legs, he didn't make it. The ball went flying in a perfect long and wide curve right into the top left corner of their living room window. Lena shrieked as the glass crashed and little Derek clapped both hands over his open mouth in shock, but while his wife stared with horrifying eyes at the whole in the window and the football sitting happily in her flower pot, Ernest turned around with beaming and proud brown eyes and raced over to his stunned son.

"That's my boy.", he cheered, picking his son up and swinging him around, having the small boy giggle and laugh again in no time.   
"Again, again.", Derek squealed once he had been set down again and Ernest completely ignored the glaring heat coming his way from Lena's angry face as he jogged inside and got back their football. Derek was happy, what did some broken glass mean if his son was happy.

\--

End

\--

That night, Ernest was awake long after the house had fallen into silence, and even if the thought of cuddling closer to his wife and following her into the beautiful land of dreams was so tempting, something inside of his mind kept him awake and alert.

And it was around three in the morning that he just gave up on sleep and silently slipped back into his socks to walk back downstairs and get some coffee, another wonderful treat he had passed over to his son. On his way down, he stopped on the second story to take a small peak into his children's rooms, but where he found his darling angelic daughter hugging her teddy and sleeping peacefully, he got presented with a different picture in his son't doorway.

Derek was tossing in his sleep in obvious distress, blankets kicked away, the laptop still on one side of his bed, his phone laying next to it, and what really prompted Ernest to enter and close the door behind himself was for one the quiet whimper Derek breathed out in the next moment and second the picture he found clutched in his hand in the next.

It was a picture of the three boys from freshman year, all three happily smiling into the camera, Ernest knew it well, he had seen it many times in Derek's room back home and here, and sighed when he pried it from his son's hand, before sitting down on the edge.

"Hey.", he quietly called out and reached with one hand to shake his son awake, Derek's eyes flew open in the next second and gasped out loud, hands shaking slightly when he pushed them through his hair, "It was only a dream.", the older Seigerson man soothed a hand down his son's arm, waiting in patience until Derek had breathed through the shock of waking up from his nightmare.

It was when Derek pulled his knees to his chest and look up at him again with those wise beyond his years look in those hazel eyes that Ernest handed the photo back to him and Derek took it with a barely there smile on his lips and pushed it under his pillow.

"Thanks for waking me up.", he whispered and Ernest nodded, waiting some more until he could feel his son't pulse start to slow down under his hand.  
"What was is this time?", he asked gently and Derek turned suffering eyes towards him, before hs started to speak in a quiet voice.  
"Fire, lots of fire and I couldn't find Julian or Logan, but Logan was screaming my name. Dad, when will this stop?", Ernest didn't answer him, because truly there wasn't a simple answer for it, so instead he pulled Derek to his chest and tried to give him some strength in another way, Derek let himself fall against him and rested his head upon his shoulder.

When would it be better? Maybe in a week, maybe in a few months, maybe in a year, maybe once Logan and Julian were better, maybe it would take them more time even. There was no answer, they would have to see how it moved on from where they were now. All he knew was that they wouldn't be alone on their way anymore. He would never leave his son on his own anymore.

He was eighteen. Not twenty eight, he was still a kid and even if he tried to hard sometimes to not let it show, sometimes a parent just needed to be just that, a guide, a leader, a supporter and more than just a friend.

And Ernest remembered a time when Derek had once thought as well that he was old enough to do things on his own, when another nightmare had troubled him nine years ago, but had then made him realize that you didn't always need to do everything alone. That asking for help was not a failure.

\--

Flashback

\--

He was completely caught in dreams and sleep and didn't even realize what the frantic shaking of his body meant while he cheered on his favourite baseball team, only when that soft but terrified quiet voice got louder and more insisting did he begin to wake up.

His brown eyes had blinked open to find his nine year old son sitting on his chest, hectic hands shaking his shoulders, Derek's lips calling him over and over again. And it only needed one look into the tear struck face of his oldest child to have Ernest wide awake within a second and he sat up and pushed his arms around his crying son.

"What happened, champ?", he asked and soothed a hand down his panicked son, who hiccuped against his shoulder, "Did you have a nightmare again?", a feeble nod followed.  
"Someone tried to take Mommy and Mandy and I couldn't stop them, but I had to, because you said I'm a big brother now and Corvin said being a big brother means that you have to protect your family. But Daddy, I couldn't stop them and Mandy was crying.", it all tumbled from his mouth in one giant rush and when he was done, Ernest only held him stronger and began to whip them sligthly from side to side to calm his son.

"Derek, Mommy and Mandy are still in the hospital, but both of them are okay and happy and safe. No one will take them, do you hear me?", he pushed his son away a little to look him in the eyes, Derek sniffed, "And it's not your task to protect them, okay? You're still a kid, all you have to do at the moment is play and be good in school, and be happy. And to help us a little with your sister. You still have time to grow up, hm? Don't you wanna be my little boy a little longer?", Derek seemed to think about it for a moment but then nodded, "Good, now come, Mandy is coming home tomorrow, we need all the last sleep we can get.", and he tugged his son into bed next to him, keeping one arm tightly wrapped around him when they went back to sleep together.

\--

End

\--

He knew then that it would be okay, that they would be alright. That Derek would be okay and the two boys he called his best friends as well, because none of them was alone now. They had each other. And if making his son happy again meant fixing another set of father and son relationship and getting a stuck up Hollywood diva to see sense concerning her son's mental health, than Ernest would do everything in his power to achieve that.

Because Derek was his boy, and he would always be his boy. And his boy would be happy.


End file.
